History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c41.s5.1

v3.c41.s5.1

We have already described the founding of the Moslem Turkish kingdom at Ghazni and the conquest of Kabul and the Panjab by Sabuktagin and Mahmud. As a consequence not only ‘White India’ (to the west of the Indus consisting of Kabul and Zabul) and the Panjab lost their independence but most of their population was forcibly converted to Mahomedanism. This happened in the beginning of this sub-period (975-1025 A. D.). Both Sabuktagin and Mahmud adopted the policy of forcibly converting the people of the conquered country to Mahomedanism, from motives of political expediency as well as from religious fanaticism. The opposition of the people to such forcible conversion was weak owing to the weakness of their Hindu religious feeling, especially to the west of the Indus. These people have since then so completely become Mahomedan that they have even lost all memory of the fact that they were Hindus only 900 years back, even in the mountainous tract of Ghor. Afghans and Pathans have now even come to believe that they are the descendants of Semitic peoples come from Assyria and Arabia. The people of the Panjab in its western portion where they have mostly been converted, however, still maintain their old clan names as Rajputs or Jats and continue to confine marriage relations to themselves and to observe certain ceremonials of the old Hindu days. Panjab became generally Mahomedan by the end of this sub-period (1200), Shihabuddin Ghori having further carried on the work of forcible conversion to Mahomedanism though not to a great extent. The hilly portion of the Panjab, however, and Kashmir which still retained its independence remained Hindu.